I'll just give my opinion on each topic...
On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 2:24 PM, Gregory Casamento
<address@hidden> wrote:
1) improve our website. It's been the same for years and doesn't
reflect our progress.
I agree here. A while back, myself an Jesse from the Etoile project started, but I had to divert my attention to other things and I'm guessing so did Jesse.
I think the move to link the Software Index was great, but, at this point, GNUstep has 3 different sources for software look-up:
1. Software Index
2. Wiki
3. Website (which links to the wiki and freshmeat)
That's just plain confusing! I personally like the Software Index better but it will require application developers to be more active in maintaining they're projects up to date.
Also, I think there needs to be a real content "audit". If I want to get to the developer docs I need to go Developers -> Manuals and Documentations... and when I get there need to scroll through quite a few links, which may or may not be outdated and redudant... only then will I find the actual API docs. This is just an example. One this issue (content) I think the core developers need to take a step back and ask "who do we want to reach" and "what to we want to convey".
2) improve GNUstep's default theme as well as theming in general.
While I know some people will respond negatively to changing the
default theme from a NeXT-like look to something more modern, I
believe it's one way for us to spark interest in the project is to
update it's look. The current look should always be available, but
not necessarily the default.
I agree with Richard on this one! Windows, QT, GTK and FLTK (to name a few) all come default with a very bland theme (except Windows, but you still have the option). Square buttons, grey everything, etc. At most, I'd say the theme can be a little more subtle... the buttons just feel very raised for my taste. In my opinion, and that's all it is, the problem here is a little deeper.
The first, and most obvious, is that GNUstep theming is still very young. Apart from Camaleon (does it still work?) and some of Riccardo's themes there's nothing out there.
The second, which is a little deeper, is that there's no way to globally define defaults. If I'm out there creating a GNUstep package (and I mostly do for Slackware, I just need to get on it for 13.0) there's not way for me to set a default, "preferred" theme--which is what the GUI toolkits above allow you to do--there is just no way for me to do that. I know it's been brought up a few times in the past, and if I remember correctly it's because of the way NSUserDefaults is setup, so (again, in my opinion) that's where the problem lies.
3) Improve our ability to market ourselves in general.
A new, targeted website would definitely get you off on the right foot.
Let me know if I can help in anyway. My help will be limited, at best, because I just started grad school.
Stefan